Inner Peace
by Blaze 420
Summary: A moment of peace provides time for introspection. Miranda Lawson contemplates the past, present, future and the role that love has come to play in her life.


**Author's Notes - Ahh kink meme, how I love thee. If it weren't for you my profile would be pretty much empty.  
Anyways here's the prompt:**

_I remember seeing this great piece of fanart that portrayed the night before Ilos in ME1. Shepard is just lying back in his bunk with a sleeping Ashley draped over him.  
The artist's skill with anatomy and detail with skin tones and Ashley's hair was stupendous, of course, but it was the theme of the image that really got to me. Ashley's just lying there, this peaceful look on her face, confident that Shepard can do anything...while Shepard is awake and reflective, wondering how he's going to win.__**  
**__So yeah, BroShep and his female LI, just drifting off to sleep in space. Something...calm._

**The name of this one shot was taken from Inner Peace by Rachel Currea, the piano piece which inspired it.  
Been edited slightly to make it read a little better, shout out to hardboiledgregg for that.**

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Miranda's eyes snapped open; gentle snoring the filling the room where the fish tank's soft blue glow and the star speckled sky above were the only sources of light.

She remembered hearing once that people had lost a lot of sleep worrying about whether he would return home or not but was proud to say that she never once counted herself among their ranks. How could she?  
The man was too damn tough to be killed.  
Not that it stopped her stomach from churning every time reports came in of dead Alliance soldiers or that the prospect of him charging into battle with the Reapers didn't terrify her a little. But only a little.

Yet as Miranda laid back at his side where she belonged with a leg slung lazily over his abdomen, his bare chest her pillow and his arms her blanket; she couldn't help but wonder what it was that pulled her from the peaceful slumber she had been enjoying.

It wasn't until her eyes fell upon the contentment that had settled into his usually grim expression that Miranda remembered what had prompted her to arise so early.  
She loved watching him sleep.  
Seeing him dozing serenely provided a poignant reminder that just as he was the only one who could make the perfect woman feel perfect, she was the only one who could give this man of war the peace his pride would never allow him to admit he needed.

Soft laughter passed her lips.

"Of all the people in the galaxy I had to fall for you," she mused, head shaking in disbelief.

An orphan son of Earth and the daughter of a wealthy egomaniac.  
The infamous Butcher of Torfan and the former Cerberus operative.  
No matter which way she put it, the idea of two of them together seemed absolutely preposterous.

It wasn't until her fingers began tracing the once hateful crimson lines carved into his face that she remembered there was no way for her to avoid falling for him. Or stop once the first seeds of love had been planted.  
Be it for survival against his stacked odds or affection for the only kin she acknowledged, fate had forced them both to walk a path of sin which had left their souls broken in such a way that everything fit perfectly when their pieces finally came together.

"I love you," she uttered softly, recalling the sight of an uncharacteristically nervous Shepard.

For as long as she could recall, simply saying "I love you" never seemed like enough for either of them.  
He was a man of action not words, so his displays of affection normally amounted to destroying anyone or anything that would try to harm her or a warm embrace were he feeling particularly expressive.  
She on the other hand preferred to climb atop him and let her body say everything that seemed perpetually incapable of clearing her throat.  
But as Oriana had reminded her during one their rare chats, it was often the words one neglected to say which needed to be said most.  
It wasn't until the night that before, when they'd both finally let those three little words pass their lips that Miranda realised just how right her sister was, and just how hard and fast she had fallen for him in a manner that was once unfathomable to her scientific mind.  
As Shepard himself had put it, "theirs was a real, once in a lifetime kind of love he needed two lives to find. The kind of love they didn't need to call love to know was love because the way she made him a better man by just being in his life said more than three words ever could."

Despite showing more of himself to her than anyone else, Shepard's knack for prose still caught her by surprise.

"Even more reason to love him," she reasoned, doe eyes gazing reverently upon his sleeping form.

"That's creepy you know?"

Miranda knew alright. So well in fact that his query caused a smile to tug at her lips but never quite materialise.

"I can't help it," Miranda protested playfully, managing to keep her expression impassive as she pulled his arm over her shoulder while curling up beside him. "You look your best when you've been with me."

She was right of course. She was always right. That annoying ability to always be correct which had made her difficult to like at first eventually made it easy for him to adore Miranda. And in time, love her.

"Whatever," Shepard shrugged, falling back to sleep. "Just make sure you get some sleep, we got a war to win."

Even yawning, his voice carried the same strength which allowed him to bear the weight of an entire galaxy aloft on his shoulders and not shrug.  
That same strength made being with him difficult, but not loving him impossible.

Miranda smiled to herself, the gradual onset of fatigue making her eyelids heavier with every passing second.  
Not that she was ready to let slumber claim her just then.  
A few minutes like the ones she had been enjoying were as rare and precious as platinum, so she intended to make the most of them before war would wrench her from his arms again.  
That and she had a future to plan. The possibilities were endless.

_Marriage perhaps?_  
Miranda Shepard did have a nice ring to it and the thought of Henry Lawson rolling in his grave due to his "legacy" being tainted by the blood of someone he would look down upon only made the idea that much more appealing.  
Losing her last link to him was simply a bonus.  
In all honesty though, she would have been happy just making up for all the time war had taken from them.  
That their collection of stolen moments during a time of unending chaos was more than most had gotten provided little, if any, solace.

_Children?_  
Miranda had received news that she was infertile but that particular issue was one she figured could be easily rectified. She could revive the dead after all. It was simply a case of never having sufficient incentive to do so.

"At least until you came along," she thought aloud.

Her original reasons for wanting to conceive were so bitter and twisted she had long since forgotten them.  
Recently though, the idea of seeing her brilliant mind balanced by his indomitable spirit had spurned Miranda's latest desire to be a mother.  
Though Shepard did raise the salient point that any offspring of theirs would likely have her cunning and his knack for blowing things up thus making him or her "the galaxy's most effective terrorist."

Perhaps more than anything however, it was the prospect of normality which Miranda clung to most.  
After a life spent making the impossible probable, a few years of tedium seemed, dare she say it, rather exciting in comparison.  
And Shepard had expressed a desire to live out the rest of his days as Carlos rather than Commander Shepard.  
If nothing else, she figured an ordinary life would be different at least.

Of course, there was the small matter of a war against the Reapers first but that was a mere formality so far as Miranda was concerned.  
Shepard had fought and beaten the odds his entire life so while she didn't know how, she just knew he would find a way to win because he always did.

"And if not," she whispered, laying her head upon his chest. "Then I'll be right there by your side to make sure my damn good work doesn't go to waste."

Eyes slowly closing, pillow rising and falling beneath her cheek with every breath, she heard him whisper, "As it should have been from the start."

* * *

**For those who haven't figured it out yet, this is a slightly AU one shot that took place on the night before the assault on Cronos Station.**

**"Once in a lifetime kind of love he needed two lives to find", "it was often the words one neglected to say which needed to be said most", "bear the weight of an entire galaxy aloft on his shoulders and not shrug" were slightly modified lines taken from StarbucksS9's A Flash of Brown, hardboiledgregg's Miranda: The Space That Separates and Nevery's I Should Go respectively.  
If you haven't already, check their work out it's real dope.**

**Other than that, thanks for reading.**

**Peace.**


End file.
